How much do lungs affect long distance running??

Question

I know their important but how important and what exercises can I do improve them? The only exercises know to improve lungs are to hold breath underwater, and to take inhale (as much as possible) and hold a few sec then exhale (as much as possible) and hold again. And by long distance, I mean 2.4 miles or so.

So, how affective are those things for improving your lungs and what are some other things that can be done? Also, I do not smoke nor have I even smoked (not even 1 puff, no 2nd hand smoke either). Thumbs-up rating for every helpful answer.

Answer 1

You'll build your lungs up BY running.

And it affects it a lot, there's tons of guys at my school who are awesome sprinters or good 400meter runners but they slow down A LOT if they have to run anything over 800meters. So that means they have the speed but just not the endurance

Endurance is pretty much having good lungs, you know, how hard you're breathing when you run. As you run your muscles will get better and won't need as much oxygen to do the same things they used to, so that's how you get better. There's also some stuff about your heart and blood that factors into it....but all that's really important is that you need to exercise to get better and the best exercise is running.

Answer 2

i dont think that having good lungs has that big of an affect on how well you can run but it certainly cant hurt!

Answer 3

To improve your lungs for long distance runs... run long distances :)